LAHORE: Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar on Satur­day took notice of a death warrant issued against mentally-ill prisoner Khizar Hayat, sought a report to ascertain the prisoner’s ailment and suspended the sentence till further orders.

During the hearing of cases at the Lahore registry of Supreme Court, the chief justice noted that he had read in an English daily that a mentally-ill prisoner was sentenced to be hanged. When asked, the additional advocate general said Mr Hayat was serving his sentence at the central jail in Kot Lakhpat.

The chief justice directed the law officer to verify whether the condemned prisoner was mentally-ill. He observed that the matter involved basic human rights and needed to be heard on an urgent basis.

A day earlier, a district and sessions judge in Lahore had scheduled the execution of Mr Hayat for January 15. Mr Hayat was sentenced to death in 2003 over the shooting of a fellow police officer. He has spent nearly 15 years on death row. Mr Hayat was first diagnosed as a schizophrenic in 2008 by jail medical authorities.

In 2010, the jail medical officer recommended that Mr Hayat needed specialised treatment and should be shifted to the psychiatric facility. However, this was never done. In 2017, the Lahore High Court had stayed the execution of Mr Hayat.

“Taking notice of the issue, the chief justice suspended the sentence of the prisoner till further orders and fixed the matter for hearing on Jan 14,” stated the press release issued by the Supreme Court on Saturday.

Meanwhile on Monday, a two-member bench — comprising Justice Mansoor Ahmad Malik and Justice Sardar Tariq Masood — will hear an appeal for the suspension of death sentence of Mr Hayat.

The petition, filed by Mr Hayat’s mother Iqbal Bano, was fixed for hearing on Saturday.

Mr Hayat’s mother, in a letter, requested the chief justice to visit the Kot Lakhpat jail ward for mentally ill prisoners and investigate what medicines were being given to her son.

She pleaded that his medical records be investigated “to determine why his treatment was not being done properly and why his condition was worsening day by day”.

The appeal also challenged a 2018 judgement by a Lahore High Court division bench, besides seeking a stay against the execution of Mr Hayat. It said the judgement passed by the division bench was not in accordance with law and the prison rules. It said the bench mixed the conviction with execution and thereby dismissed the petition on wrong premises.

It stated that the bench had not appreciated the extensive medical history of the appellant’s son as well as the reports of the medical boards establishing the mental ailment of Mr Hayat.

The appeal argued that a condemned prisoner could not be executed in utter disregard of the prison rules on the subject. It pleaded that the government had a legal duty under the Prisons Rules 1978 to provide the appellant’s son with adequate and appropriate treatment for his mental illness at a psychiatric facility. To deny him this treatment was an arbitrary abuse of power and a violation of Articles 9, 14 and 25 of the Constitution, it contested

Published in Dawn, January 13th, 2019